ABSTRACT
Air pollution is accountable for various long-term and short-term respiratory diseases and even deaths. Air pollution is normally associated with a decreasing life expectancy. Governments have been implementing strategies to improve air quality. However, natural events have always played an important role in the concentration of air pollutants. In Australia, the lockdown period followed the Black Summer of 2019-2020 and coincided with the season of prescribed burns. This paper investigates the changes in the concentration of criteria pollutants such as particulate matter, nitrogen dioxide, ozone, and sulphur dioxide. The air quality data for the lockdown period in 2020 was compared with the pre-lockdown period in 2020 and with corresponding periods of previous years from 2016 to 2019. The results were also compared with the post-lockdown scenario of 2020 and 2021 to understand how the concentration levels changed due to behavioural changes and a lack of background events. The results revealed that the COVID-19 restrictions had some impact on the concentration of pollutants;however, the location of monitoring stations played an important role.
ABSTRACT
This study focuses on how the covid-19 pandemic impacts NO2 concentration in Kota City, Rajasthan (India), under different metrological conditions (Temperature, Precipitation, Relative Humidity, and Wind speed and direction). A reduction in NO2 concentration (-55%) was observed due to the Lockdown in Kota city. A sharp decrease of -37% in NO2 levels was observed in lockdown compared to the same period of 2019. However, a massive increase of 57% in NO2 levels was also seen in 2021 compared to the 2020 lockdown period. This study shows the lockdown effect on atmospheric composition, mainly through massive traffic and anthropogenic emissions reduction, significantly reducing NO2 concentrations. The findings can give confidence to stakeholders involved in air quality policy that if better pollution control plans are put in place and strictly implemented, pollution prevention can be done well. The natural environment and air quality have greatly improved due to lockdown. © The Electrochemical Society
ABSTRACT
The coronavirus pandemic was declared a worldwide pandemic by WHO. In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, a cross country-wide lockdown was forced in India from March 24–May 3, 2020. Due to the compelled restrictions, contamination level in metropolitan zones definitely reduced inside a couple of days which enrapture discussions as for lockdown to be the effectual elective measures to be executed for controlling air tainting. The current article in the end chipped away at this heading to view the air quality situation in the midst of the lockdown time frame deductively with uncommon reference to Jaipur city. With the guide of air quality information of four contamination boundaries (PM10, PM2.5, SO2 and NO2) for 3 continuous air monitoring stations (CAMS), i.e., Shastri Nagar (ST-1), Adarsh Nagar (ST-2) and Police Commissionerate, Jaipur (ST-3) spread over the city, to comprehend the variations in the degree of pollutants during March 24–May 3, 2019 and lockdown 2020;a trend is demonstrated for 24 h daily average data for four pollutants. We have utilized National Air Quality Index (NAQI) to show the spatial example of air quality during lockdown 2020 stages, furthermore comparing it with 2019 data of the same period. This study utilizes three different methods to show Air Quality Indices during the selected periods. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022.